Many Chicago residents are unhappy with the Obama Presidential Center, saying it’s causing the area to be gentrified and pricing out locals.
The $800 million-plus center to commemorate former President Barack Obama’s legacy is set to open in April, but local leaders and community members say it’s already causing problems.
The Washington Times has reached out to the Obama Foundation for comment.
Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, who represents most of the area where the center is being built, told the Daily Mail that while she backs Mr. Obama, she fought against some of the project.
“We’re going to see rents go higher and we’re going to see families displaced,” she said. “Every time large development comes to communities, they displace the very people they say they want to improve it for.”
The center is a whopping 19.3 acres in Jackson Park.
“It looks like this big piece of rock that just landed here out of nowhere in what used to be a really nice landscape of trees and flowers,” Ken Woodard, an attorney from the area, told the Mail. “It’s a monstrosity.”
He also ripped the project as costing more than planned, plus it’s late.
“It’s over budget, it’s taking way too long to finish and it’s going to drive up prices and bring headaches and problems for everyone who lives here,” he said. “It feels like a washing away of the neighborhood and culture that used to be here.”
Others from the area, like Kyana Butler, an activist with Southside Together, have called it “pretty huge and monstrous.”
“It could have been smaller in scale and cost a lot less money,” she said. “We’re all worried about the impact on the community.”
Ms. Taylor and Ms. Butler said a community benefits agreement should’ve been discussed before the project was allowed. A CBA is a contract between developers and a community group that outlines what benefits a project will provide to the community in exchange for support for the project, like affordable housing and jobs for people in the neighborhood.
“I don’t blame President Obama for all of this, but the people on his team may not have the best intentions for people in this area,” Ms. Butler said.
The center’s website said it will feature a fruit and vegetable garden, an athletic program facility, museum, auditorium and a branch of the Chicago Public Library.
It says the center will be a “lively community hub, economic anchor and beacon of democracy right here on the South Side of Chicago. “
Mr. Obama chose the location of his library in 2016, and since then the cost has gone from an estimated $500 million to $830 million.
The former president has said he hopes the center “helps bring Chicago together at a time when Chicago, like much of the country, sometimes feels divided.”
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
